England v USA

The game billed by the Americans as if they were the massive underdogs, one billed by the UK press with ignorance of USA sport. But neither could have been more wrong as both sides were equally matched, the strong US team were never going to be any push over’s and tactically could have called the game a success, the New York Post declaring it a 1-1 victory for the Team USA.

In truth a poor start by England but it had it’s positives. Heskey came to the front and showed early on in the game why Capello likes to have him in the squad. The target man was looked for throughout the game to give the pass to, strong in possession and holding the ball up while the talents of Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard came from deep being fed by good simple passes opening up space for them. Shown brilliantly early in the game as such a move made the goal for Gerrard.

England fielded a team looking to attack the USA, but instead found themselves without balance in the squad without a supporting play player such as Barry finding themselves poor in possession, against a strong US side looking to deal with the England using two defensive midfielders to reduce space for England, which they did well after the first 10 minutes. .

Alot could be praise should go to the USA wingers who looked dangerous, this forced Ashley Cole, up against Landon Donavan, to be pinned back to deal with him and unable to join England further up the field, something that could have proved the difference for England if he was allowed to. This may also have meant that out of position Milner or Wright-Phillips who were playing the new found popular inverted winger role wouldn’t have looked so bad and allowed to drift further into the middle. England was largely the better side, but USA stifled England well and prevented the dominance to amount to good chances. The demonstrated that it is not always dominance of a game that counts, something that holds true in FM.

Player Instructions - England

Team Instructions

Player Instructions - USA

Team Instructions

Slovenia vs. Algeria

Two teams with little technical ability and defensive minded cancelled each other out and made for rather dull watching. Slovenia showed a good lesson on keeping what to do when you have little technical ability in your squad and got lucky to win the game.

Algeria looked to want by put more pressure on Slovenia, with very direct play. They would win the ball in midfield, shipping it out to the wingers where you either had attacking wingback Belhadj who enjoyed running with the ball and joining attacks or the wingers who looked to play long direct balls straight to Djebbour, floating crosses from deep, the pace of these players getting them forward quickly and proving the difference in the two sides in the game. But with Slovenia unwilling to commit themselves forward and looking organised at the back the pacey players just found themselves running into opposition players and the direct play was in the end a poor use of the possession. Algeria looked most dangerous down the left hand side where they could use the attacking tendancy of Belhadj with his pace to act as a winger to run with the ball and get crosses in combined also with the speed of Ziani.

Slovenia looked comfortable at the back making themselves hard to break down each player man marking another so not allowing Algeria much space to operate. They defended most of the game dealing with Algeria’s crossing by having men marked tightly, so that Slovenia were positioned well to challenge in the air. It wasn’t until Algeria had Ghezzal sent off that Slovenia attacked a little more and a wonderful strike from Koren proving the difference in a tight uneventful game.

Player Instructions - Slovenia

Team Instructions

Player Instructions - Algeria

Team Instructions

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